Fandroids blow $200,000 on secret PANIC BUTTON for their smartmobes

The cleverly-designed Pressy gadget drops into the headphone socket on any Android handset, adding a button that can be linked to any action.

While Apple might spend its time eradicating buttons, and touchscreens remain flavour of the decade, physical controls have advantages and there are rarely enough of them. Meanwhile the headphone socket is generally empty and using up valuable case space, so the Pressy suggests filling that space with an additional button.

Here it is in action:

The design rises 0.7mm from the socket, and can be removed when headphones have to be plugged in (with the action switching to the headphone switch, if present). There's even a storage tube that snaps onto a keyring to keep the Pressy safe while headphones are occupying the socket.

The idea is clever, and in hindsight obvious, which is why the $40,000 the developers hoped to raise from Kickstarter donations has been tripled within 24 hours of the project being announced - right now, it's up to $206,000 (£133k) That doesn't guarantee that the Pressy will get built, or cost the $17 it's currently listed at, but it should provide the inventors with a significant incentive to make it real.

But Pressy is a fine idea, and seems eminently practical, and being as they're rolling in cash we look forward to seeing it progress into a real product - after the weekend, once the inventors have sobered up. ®